For any of you who doubt the value of social networking, IBM - in conjunction with MIT - has been Putting a Price on Social Connections [see original research on Value of Social Networks]. That's right, virtual friends have value! IBM has discovered a major source of new business resulting directly from the improved collaboration and listening, execution, value creation and more immediate response that Marketing 2.0 generates.

Here's the fascinating lesson that Sandy shared: IBM has no social media strategy. That's right. Instead, it has a marketing strategy where social media is integrated and part of the tool kit. In other words, IBM is Bridging New & Old!

To determine when to best "dial in/out" social elements, IBM involves a Social Media Council made up of IBMers across disciplines who are active, passionate users of social media; participation in the council is voluntary. IBM also brings supplier partners into the process so they can adopt the same practices and truly be part of the overall 'ecosystem.'

Did you know that all IBM events now include a live 'Twitter stream' [i.e., they project onto a screen all tweets relating to the event in real time] so participants can immediately respond?

Sandy Carter definitely draws inspiration from examples she observes from outside IBM and its industry. She referred to Zappos, Dell, Comcast... She brought up a B2C company [maker of WD40] that created a blog to identify why women don't buy WD40; men do. The result? A new WD40 Pen from the feedback garnered through the blog. [Check out this amazing post listing the Top WD-40 Uses for Moms. FYI.]

This is the ANGELS framework developed for Marketing 2.0 to implement traditional and web 2.0 marketing:A – Analyze the marketN – Nail the relevant strategy and storyG – Go to Market... sociallyE – Energize the channel and communityL – Leads and RevenueS – Scream!

Sandy shared details on projects in three of the ANGELS elements.

ANALYZE - Project Zero: WebSphere sMashA new web 2.0 product scheduled to launch in time for Impact 2008 combined social media with traditional approaches to better gather market intelligence, conduct focus groups, and obtain feedback from 12-15 countries around the world. Social media helped gather product requirements via a blog, a Twitter account and a forum. In the first two months, the social media tools not only led to new topics and 4300 different postings.

To get the word out, IBM let its community of IBM bloggers know; mention was made in LinkedIn and Twitter groups. As IBM obtained feedback, it created another iteration of the product for further feedback. After ~1000 betas [which did not elongate the cycle], Sandy's group had one of the most successful product introductions ever, accelerating it via Amazon web services partnership, at Impact 2008 [an in-person conference for not just the 13 IBM web developers but also the 1000 customers who considered themselves developers on the project because of their involvement].

Social media played a role in that product's Go To Market plan: names were solicited online for the product - resulting in sMash.

IBM attorneys were concerned that competitors might feed bad ideas into the open forum. Interestingly, the community monitored and prevented that outcome. That's how strong it became! [Here are IBM's terms of use.] With the lines between personal/professional blurring, IBM has also developed a list of social media guidelines for what can/can't do: can't do political endorsements, for example. The most active IBM bloggers helped establish the guidelines.

[Originally, Sandy had a person dedicated to tracking #hashtags and finding patterns. Now the tracking is automated and even includes an iPhone dashboard!]

GO TO MARKET... SOCIALLY - No Lead Left BehindIBM uses social media to go to market and drive demand. The opportunity arose as IBM asked itself, given the economy, how to get higher conversion from leads, particularly those relating to events. The solution was to have event attendance be less about the event and more about the community that the event creates; this resulted in a continual/perpetual campaign which now complements other marketing activities.

To drive more people to events via the website, IBM discovered and implemented new bot technology - Vanessa - who presented offers in a social manner, inviting visitors to join and become part of community. A low cost solution [~$4k to create a bot], she yielded a 5x higher click through rate. She was used selectively as overuse decreased response, but she has been added to ibm.com/soa where she appears when there is something new to promote.

Next, Sandy's group created a Linkedin group around the Impact conference and leveraged Twitter to drive traffic to the event. [This is similar to what Zappos and Dell do, offering that the next 50 to register, will be entered into a lottery for time with a subject matter expert. An experiment in Amsterdam with this kind of offer led to achieving 40% of promo registration target within 72 hours. The learning: relationship time is a number one grabber! Not free t-shirts.

To ensure that the event wasn't simply the end game, Carter created a community around the topical area. After an initial failure building an IBM community site, she opted to go use a 3rd party - InfoQ - with IBM sponsorship to create SOAsocial; it received 3000 unique customers per month, offering customized content by audience. Participating are user groups, partners, academia, industries, all organized by role; they have a single common place to go to for relevant information. Members collaborate, ask and answer questions, and conduct polling. IBM wanted to encourage topics to bubble up. A new one even developed around analysts. The community generates co-created content. A university in London has been active on site, setting up assignments, questions, and conducting research. Profile information includes personal experiences to facilitate relationship building and credibility.

The community has taken the IBM brand to another level with satisfaction levels for community members being 15 points higher than with those not a part of it. Members consider IBM a personal company. [The latest Interbrand study on brands shows IBM leapfrogging MicroSoft to #2 because it has so many employees blogging; it isn't a disconnected company but rather a personable P2P company.]

The website includes links to all communities and groups. Depending on what your tool of choice is, the options are there. No surprise, LinkedIn is stronger than Facebook because that's where IBM buyers are.

A Flickr account has been established. With so many events taking place in 100 cities around world, competition to take and post photos between event cities has been encouraged, helping to generate attention. Furthermore - and this I consider fascinating - IBM has learned from seeing the event from their customers' eyes. It has done the same on YouTube [this is the YouTube channel for WebSphere Education from IBM]. As with seeing events from their customers' eyes, videos enable IBM to listen to better understand how customers talk about products. This has let to changes in how products are described and referred to which then leads to changes for SEO, marketing materials and messaging.

Other benefits realized: over $100K savings because IBM didn't need as much staff to travel to events; speakers were better educated, and professional photographers weren't necessary because attendees took pictures. Tweets and blogposts meant less manual reporting, too.

Finally, IBM developed a widget to syndicate IBM Smart SOA materials. This arose because customers repeatedly asked "can I have your presentation?" Traditionally, IBM would email or post it. The Smart SOA widget pushes information out to customers via an RSS feed; it can be downloaded to a desktop or used as a web based widget. Not only does it provide attendees with the material they asked for, but it also provides updates about future events. It also enables you to track what users are looking at, downloading, as well as how many people download and total downloads...

8000 people out of 15,000 have downloaded the widget; 6000 still actively use it. Widgetbox created it -- the first for free; the second cost $5K to $7K [up to $15K for a fancy widget].

From Nordstrom [i.e., a B2C], Sandy borrowed another tool: LivePerson to offer live chat with commentary triggered by certain online behavior patterns. IBM now has a popup window to have a dialog with users. The sales team sits behind the chat window monitoring so it can react appropriately. It's the most productive sales team in all IBM because the customer is pre-qualified. Marketers can customize when the window pops up. LivePerson ROI = 56X. Once again, as a result, customers found IBM easier to do business with and that they listened better.

ENERGIZE THE CHANNEL AND COMMUNITY - Global Virtual ForumIBM decided to run a virtual event because so many people can't travel to attend events. ON24 created the interactive virtual event. It wasn't just a webcast. Attendees created an avatar to participate and visit demo booths; they could chat and visit coffee rooms to interact. [IBM even charged virtual booth sponsorship fees.] The feedback was phenomenal. Sandy's team expected 500 to attend. Instead, 3000 did! They've now done three such events. They are effective and the conversion rate is similar to that of live events, at far lower cost.